


At the Threshold

by Severely_Lupine



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severely_Lupine/pseuds/Severely_Lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after his escape, Sirius goes to the only person he has any hope of being able to trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Threshold

_He'll listen.  He'll have to listen.  We have too much history._

Sirius was hiding in the bushes outside a beaten down old shack that barely passed for a house, trying to convince himself that it was worth knocking on the door.

Remus had kept his secret, he was sure of it.  Or else the wanted posters would have mentioned that the dangerous escaped convict was also an unregistered Animagus. 

The look on Remus's face the last time he'd seen him, the expression of utter betrayal and pain as Sirius was being led away, just before Remus had turned his back on him, floated before Sirius's eyes.  Had Remus truly given up on him, or had he simply known that nothing he could have done would have helped Sirius's situation? 

Remus hadn't been the traitor, after all, and Sirius's mistrust had been his own downfall.  If only they'd told Remus about the switch, or not made it at all, none of this would have happened.

_He'll listen._

Sirius stood up to go to the door when he heard a crack of Apparition and ducked back into the bushes.

A witch with short blonde hair, wearing a loose t-shirt and not-so-loose jeans appeared on the walk to Remus's house.

A lovely young woman coming to visit in the middle of the night?  _What is Remus up to?_

He watched with both appreciation and annoyance as the young woman strode up to Remus's door—appreciation for the way her hips swayed and the way her backside looked in the Muggle jeans, annoyance at her for interrupting his plans.

Unless Remus wouldn't mind if he'd join them . . .

_Damn it, Sirius!  Focus!  _

But what did he expect of himself, really?  He hadn't seen a woman—much less a pretty, young, perky one—in twelve years.  And he'd never been the gentleman that Remus was, even on his best of days.

She knocked on the door, and Remus appeared, looking around warily.

The sight of his old friend fell on Sirius like a blow to the gut.  Remus looked so tired, so lonely . . . and so old.  He was thin and pale with wrinkles around his eyes, and his hair . . . Remus was only thirty-three yet already his hair was liberally streaked through with grey. 

_What happened to you, Moony?_

Then Remus saw the girl on his doorstep, his face broke into a warm smile, and Sirius finally saw the friend he'd left behind all those years ago.

"Nymphadora!" Remus said, standing to one side of the doorway.  "How good to see you!"

"Remus . . . "  Sirius could hear the cringe in the young woman's voice.  "How many times do I have to tell you?  It's Tonks.  Just Tonks."

"Whatever you say," Remus answered, grinning cheekily, as the young woman walked past him into the house.

Sirius felt as if the air had been knocked out of him.  _Dora?_  That young, pretty, _adult_ woman was baby Dora, his cousin's daughter, whom he'd given sweets and taught to ride her first broom and once introduced to his friends (with a wink she wouldn't have understood) as his favorite shapeshifter?  And he hadn't recognized her at all—had ogled her like some stranger on the street.

That, more than anything in the past twelve years, more than anything he'd seen or heard since breaking out, brought the years crashing down on him as if they'd decided to attack him all at once.

The next moment, hope welled in his chest.  She was family and she'd liked him.  If he was really lucky, Andromeda would have spared her from all the gossip that would surely have got around about him after his imprisonment.  Maybe she could be an ally, one more person to know he was innocent, to help him exact his revenge on Peter.

But she was inside now, and the door was closed.  Sirius inched closer until he could hear them talking through the window.

"How are your parents?" Remus asked her.

"Mum and Dad are fine.  Last I checked, anyway."  Sirius heard a muffled thud that sounded like someone plopping herself onto a sofa.  "I haven't had much time to see them recently."

Remus chuckled and Sirius heard the clink of a spoon on a teacup.  "Mad-Eye's working you hard, is he?"

Sirius froze.

"Oh, everyone's putting in extra hours lately," Dora said, her tone getting harsh.  "And we have Sirius-bloody-Black to thank for that.  Why couldn't he have just stayed in prison and saved all of us the trouble?"

Sirius's heart fell.  _So much for another ally._

Inside, Remus sighed.  "I wish I knew.  And why now, after all this time?"

"He wants to get at that Potter boy," Dora replied.  "That's what everyone's saying."

Well, that was true enough, though not at all in the way that she—and "everyone"—meant it.

When Remus spoke again, he sounded as weary as he'd looked when Sirius had first seen him.  "I just don't understand.  The Sirius I knew . . . Well, I suppose I didn't really know him, did I?"

_No, Remus, you did.  Just give me a chance to explain._  But could he really expect such a chance?  If it had been the other way around, if it had been Remus who Peter had framed, would Sirius have given _him_ a chance?

"You haven't heard anything from him, have you?" Dora asked cautiously.

Remus was unflustered by the veiled accusation in her tone.  "No, Dora.  I haven't."

"You'd tell me if he tried to contact you, right?  I know the man was your friend, Remus, but—"

"The man murdered my friends," Remus said harshly, with more bitterness than Sirius had ever heard from him, and the words cut through Sirius like a knife.

There was a short, tense silence.  Finally, Dora, her tone light again, said, "Mum tells me you've got yourself a job coming up."

Sirius turned away from the window.  He'd heard enough. 

He withdrew the crumpled _Daily Prophet_ from his robes—the one with the picture of the Weasley family in Egypt, with one very familiar rat on a boy's shoulder—and laid it on Remus's doorstep.  Maybe he'd see it, maybe he'd recognize it for what it was: proof of Sirius's innocence.  But Sirius wasn't counting on it. 

If he truly wanted Remus, or Dora, or anyone else to know the truth, he needed hard evidence.  He needed Peter.  Dead or alive.  But preferably dead.

Sirius transformed and ran out into the night. 

* * *

"Of course, I expect it's only a matter of time before someone—"  Remus cut off when he glimpsed something through his window, looking up just in time to see the tail of a black dog disappear around the bend. 

He'd thought he'd caught a whiff of something very familiar when he opened the door to let Dora in, but . . . surely Sirius wouldn't be that stupid.  Surely he wouldn't think that Remus would help him, after all he'd done.  After he'd betrayed them all.

"What is it?" Dora asked, on the edge of her seat.

Remus shook his head and smiled pleasantly.  "Nothing.  I thought I saw . . . It's nothing."

Sirius wasn't stupid.


End file.
